Monday, August 27, 2012

Origins of a Race-Baiting Birther: How Did Mitt Rommey's Upbringing in a Racist Religion Impact His Attitudes Towards People of Color?

I would like you to use your imagination for a few moments.

Imagine if there was a candidate for the presidency, the highest and most powerful office in the United States, and that he or she once held an official position in a religious order with which they were still very closely involved.

Imagine if this candidate for President belonged to a
religion which long argued that black people were judged by God to be “cowards”
who were not worthy of true “salvation.” Consequently, black people were
destined for servitude and second class citizenship relative to white folks,
even in the afterlife.

Pluralism and tolerance are wonderful values for a society to embrace. Although the United States has been far from perfect in this regard, a belief that our differences can also be a source of strength is part of our national creed.

However, an embrace of diversity and pluralism should not prevent us from asking hard questions about which values ought to be encouraged, and if there are some beliefs and habits that are actually antithetical to our democratic project.

As the American people decide upon their next president in the months and days leading up to November’s election, these questions are made even more important.

Americans do not usually like talking publicly about religion and politics because both are understood by many people to be private matters. However, this anxiety should not stop us from asking basic questions when a concern arises that a candidate’s religion may complicate their loyalty to the Constitution, or make it either impossible or difficult for them to treat all Americans equally regardless of race, creed, or color.

We may look back and shake our heads at the following
examples now, but at the time the following concerns were treated (however
problematically) as fair and reasonable. Most famously, during the early 1960s then
candidate John F. Kennedy had to answer questions about his loyalty to the
Catholic Church and the Pope--and if these obligations would interfere with the
responsibilities and obligations that come with being President of the United States of America.

In 2008, Barack Obama’s presidential campaign was almost
derailed by his relationship with Reverend Jeremiah Wright because the American
people were not familiar with Black Liberation Theology and the prophetic,
social justice message which is common to many African American churches. As
such, President Obama had to answer some difficult questions about how Reverend
Wright’s “radical” message impacted his personal politics and values.

I am not suggesting that Mitt Romney, a Mormon, should be questioned
more harshly than other presidential candidates about his religious values. My
concern is more basic: Mitt Romney has not been asked any direct questions
about how his “deeply held” Mormon faith, a religion that was openly racist for
much of its approximately 150 year existence, impacted his attitudes towards
people of color.

Why raise these questions now? I believe in a strong wall
between Church and State; I also believe that matters of faith should be
private and not public. Since the Republican primaries, public concerns about Mitt
Romney, his Mormon faith, and its long history of racism hung in the air, but
they were not yet immediate and pressing.

This changed last Friday when Mitt Romney openly embraced
Birtherism, and its racist baggage, during a speech in Michigan.

During the last few months, Romney has also suggested that
Barack Obama is lazy, a thief, an angry hateful black man, and is an alien
Other who does not understand American values. These are centuries-old and ugly
stereotypes about black Americans.

It is also important to note that Mitt Romney’s father supported
the Black Freedom Struggle and civil rights for African-Americans. By comparison,
Mitt Romney’s only substantive comment on Mormonism’s history of racism was
that he was happy when the restrictions on blacks holding the priesthood were
removed.

We should not forget that when faced with a choice, Mitt
Romney, who was thirty-one years old in 1978, did not work to overturn his faith’s
racist policies; nor did Romney repudiate his religion’s white supremacist norms. At best, he was relieved when the elders of his faith tried to walk away
from Mormonism’s racist ways. At worst, Mitt Romney gave tacit consent and
support for prejudice and bigotry towards people of color.

I am not sure if Mitt Romney is an active, belligerent
racist, or if he simply is a product of a particularly narrow upbringing and
worldview which sees people of color as “less than,” and embraces white
privilege as an organizing principle.

“He is anxious
about revealing who he is and about interacting with people he doesn’t know. He
appears to have much less experience than Obama in interacting with people from
all walks of life. Basically, he is uncomfortable except within his own family
and in the presence of those who share his wealthy background and Mormon
faith.”

This is a devastating analysis for
a man who would be asked to lead all Americans—many of whom are nothing like
him.

Social scientists are predicting
that the United States
will be a “majority minority” country by the year 2040. Is Mitt Romney, a man
who was raised in a faith tradition which until 1978 held that people of color
were inferior to whites, comfortable with leading such a diverse country? Does
Mitt Romney’s willful and flagrant use of white racial anxiety, and an updated
version of the Southern Strategy to win over white voters, signal that he is a
racist? Is Romney’s race-baiting enabled by his faith?

Ultimately, Mitt Romney has—in what can be described in the
most generous terms—an inconsistent relationship to the truth. He has also
refused to answer basic questions about his taxes, business relationship with
Bain Capital, as well as other matters.

In all, Romney has proven himself to be
a well-practiced dissembler. Consequently, we can not be sure if Mitt Romney will
honestly answer any queries posed to him about racism and the Mormon faith. Nevertheless,
Mitt Romney should still be asked these questions: the American people, all of
us, across the color line, deserve some honest answers.

34 comments:

Anonymous
said...

What's next - a scientologist president? It seems both religions were founded by con artists who created science fiction to build wealth.

But we're not supposed to "go there" ... we're not supposed to bring up his mormonism because it would be "bad form" or "rude"... just like everyone agrees it was rude to question JFK's faith (although the media had no problem making Obama explain his faith)

In a recent article in the New Yawker, Adam Gopnik writes about how Romney's "faith" (if you want to call it that, I prefer to think of it as a social/financial arrangement) goes a long way to explain his shifting positions on the issues:

To which degree is Mormonism responsible for Mitt Romney? Is there a thread, dark or golden, that runs from Moroni to Mitt? Garry Wills has argued, after all, that Irish Catholic ideas about sin - that sin is negotiable currency, to be practiced, done penance for, forgiven - allowed JFK some serenity as he screwed his way through the White House typing pool, just as the habits of Protestant Evangelical belief, in forgiveness and temptation and forgiveness, in a never-ending cycle, helped Bill Clinton find a common language with working-class people. The most striking feature of Mitt Romney as a politician is an absence of any responsibility to his own past - the consuming sense that his life and opinions can be remade at a moment's need. When, in 1978, the Mormons abandoned the rule prohibiting blacks from serving as priests, one church leader explained "It doesn't make a particle of difference what anybody ever said about the Negro matter before the first day of June 1978." You could find similar logic behind Romney's blithe amnesia when it comes to the things he used to think and say.

Serious stretch here brah. It's not that anything you jotted down isn't factual and actual, it's simply that "as a practical matter" mormons themselves aren'vt the scary "others" you've made them out to be, notwithstanding their historical doctrinal peculiarities.

The day-to-day experience that black folk have had of mormons (including my own over a long and fairly intimate acquaintence) will be strikingly at odds with the "othering" you've tarred and feathered them with.

Now that they're on the cusp of electing their own black female congress critter (Mia Love) these questions of yours will be seen as yet another highly shrill stretch.

The real motivator is what I called out to your attention yesterday and what Pinku-Sensei timely amplified. It's the large-scale, long time-horizon move toward reurbanization after the past 60 years of suburbanization.

THAT is the crux of the ongoing and near-term story of race in America. Though historically it was also an economic movement, 60 years ago the racial component of this economic movement was far more pronounced and explicit.

Today, however, given our broad dispersion out in those suburbs, the future state of this story has much less to do with race than it does with long-term planning and investment, and, the fact that as these plans unfold, there will be some modest disparate impact.

Will this impact carry any weight, will it have any effect on plan implementation?

There is something about, what's the word?, let's call it "memes". Something we can fill with any content we choose. There is something about memes, ideas that have come to be accepted as a reasonable representation of the truth and underlying principle supporting an opinion, that is compelling. If it is repeated often enough by enough credible "serious" people, it is taken as fact. I agree with everything in this essay -I think- except the oft used meme that the birther's claims are unjustified. Just because they are motivated by racism doesn't mean that they don't have a valid claim. I mean, have you ever examined the supposedly original birth certificate? I didn't find it to be conclusive, and yet we proceed as if it were and that the issue has been resolved. So I'm not automatically assuming that anyone seeking to look into the background of this mysteriously clandestine activities disposed president. Especially with the police state oriented actions he has authorized lately. Yeah, Mitt is race-baiting. I think that's part of the good cop/bad cop plan of this defacto one party system. Demoblicans. Vote for if you want, cause Mitt's a frothing madman, but beware the thing you witnessed the first term. Beware the Obamerang.

@cnu. i am still tweaking the title of this essay. hard one. i could care less about Mormonism or any other religion. we have a man who is a religious official and member of a church that until 1978 believed that black people are cursed and can't get into heaven. we best ask how such beliefs impact Romney's attitudes.

i am not a fan of single variable monocausal arguments about politics. my claim is not an exclusive one, i.e. x leads to y. of course, all those issues are important. there is a phrase "realistic group conflict" that you may want to look up and read Larry Bobo's great article on where he works through the racism vs. resource competition debate.

Your claim could be an important part of the story along with other elements too that are used to legitimate a given strategy.

@nomad.

my claims are basic: if a black candidate, or a democrat for that matter, was a member of a religious order that said that white people couldn't get into heaven until 1978, and he or she was 31 and didn't leave dude would be done for.

Why are people afraid to ask a basic question about Moromonism and Romney's race baiting, and if he can lead a diverse nation effectively?

i know you believe in 9-11 conspiracy theories...right? but all that Obama CIA Manchurian birtherism mess come on?

Even the theory as far as crack pot theories go is ridiculous, and doesn't even make sense foundationally. Obama's mom is a U.S. citizen, he is therefore a U.S. citizen. As far as a plot it would require her to have the foresight to go and get pregnant by an African which would immediately get attention at the time, name the kid Obama--another attention getter--then have the foresight to plant a fake birth announcement in a Hawaiian paper, pay off any number of gov't officials to facilitate this great plot then somehow condition her child over decades and then have all these special life opportunities given to him. Who is doing that? The Rand Corporation? Somehow this Manchurian candidate black wunderkind climbs into elite circles and games an election.

Absurd. There are far easier ways to run the show; few if any of them involve winning a presidential election.

People can believe anything they want. That does not make it a valid claim or belief. We have fools running a Flinstone's inspired creationism museum down South; they can belief foolishness. Their belief is not a valid reflection of scientific fact or reality because it is not accurate nor does it accurately describe empirical reality.

Timely commentary..I have discussed this issue with many elders in Detroit where Mitt was born etc..

Mormons remind me of Jews they are really into their religion I have argued that while Mitt was a growing up in Detroit his family's relationship with negroes and coloreds back in that era was very rare and at best an after thought.

Mitt liked in a segregated community and clearly 'mixing' was not on the Mormon or Romney family daily agenda. Coloreds were not over for dinner at Mitt's house.

Mitt was influenced by his Mormon religion whcih speaks to his present day posture: Very few if any high ranking Black folks in his campaign, doubtful he gets any insight on issues confronting Black Americans,unlike Obama who intentionaly avoided Black issues with Mitt we willnot even be a pc afterthought..

McCain & Mitt's dad were not born in America both were never attacked by birthers yet Mitt last weekend played this card..

Mitt is not interested in anything about Black Americans we will be in peril with his presidency

White protestantism has always been the religious norm for US Presidents, so it is worth considering the scrutiny that Presidents who were not white protestants were subject to vis a vis their religion.

(1) Kennedy's catholicism was severely scrutinized, and as I understand it he was forced to essentially swear that he was not taking orders from the pope or whatever.

(2) Obama's black protestantism was severely scrutinized, and he was forced to "disavow" a pastor who led a church he attended based on willful mischaracterization of some of that pastor's rhetoric.

So it seems to me that it would be only fair and consistent with normal practice in Presidential politics to scrutinize the fucke out of Romney's mormonism.

Mitt is not interested in anything about Black Americans we will be in peril with his presidency. - Thrasher

@Thrasher, could you please explain to me, since this country’s inception, under what previous presidential administration that minorities, with Black Americans in particular, were not in a state of imperilment? This is the legacy of Blacks Americans in this country, to always be placed in a state of upheaval, uncertainty and indifference. Blacks have never experienced even a brief period of not being in a state of danger emanating either from the government or some fringe, White racist group of people.

To me, this is an integral portion of this country’s overwhelmingly racist, funky history. To continually place Whites in a permanently advantageous, social position. While on the other hand, minorities and Blacks are socially neglected and physically denigrated to the point of being looked upon as being sub-human and undeserving.

You cannot say under President Lincoln, that Blacks were not in a state of imperilment simply because of his so-called Emancipation Proclamation. Hell….., after President Hayes withdrew Union troops from the South in the Compromise of 1877, Blacks were literally res-enslaved and essentially thrown back on the plantations and former slave masters came back to redeem their land that they were forced to leave during Reconstruction. I’ll remind you that this was merely fourteen years after Blacks were supposedly freed by Pres. Lincoln in 1863. Therefore, what period are you referring to???

541 views means you can hardly even get hoodwinked and bamboozled viewers to take a look at your sorry-assed video - how much less likely is it than any of these victims of 5 seconds of your video-abuse would ever consider tossing you a plugged nickel?

"Even the theory as far as crack pot theories go is ridiculous, and doesn't even make sense foundationally. Obama's mom is a U.S. citizen, he is therefore a U.S. citizen. As far as a plot it would require her to have the foresight to go and get pregnant by an African which would immediately get attention at the time, name the kid Obama--another attention getter--then have the foresight to plant a fake birth announcement in a Hawaiian paper, pay off any number of gov't officials to facilitate this great plot then somehow condition her child over decades and then have all these special life opportunities given to him. Who is doing that? The Rand Corporation? Somehow this Manchurian candidate black wunderkind climbs into elite circles and games an election."

It is utterly ridiculous. Except that part about Manchurian candidate. I don't underestimate the capabilities of clandestine government projects. I don't necessarily subscribe to the theory that Obama was born in Nigeria. That part doesn't matter, for the reasons you stated. Nevertheless, a convincing original birth certificate has yet to be produced. Strange. It's as if something on the original document is being hidden. I'm suspicious. And Barack Obama brought this suspicion upon himself by going to such great lengths to hide portions of his path and his complete capitulation to a rightwing agenda. I'm suspicious of people who betray their principles. Something fishy is going on here. Not being privy to what it is all I can do is ask cui bono. And who has the abilities to pull off a Manchurian candidate operation. And these people that have these kind of covert psychological operation capabilities. Are they unscrupulous enough to use them in that way? Nah. That is pretty farfetched, now that I think about it. I mean, people who'd do something like that would have to be, like, psychopaths.

Racism and stupidity exist on both sides. For a nice summary of Obama's tacit defense of black racism against whites, see http://tinyurl.com/8tzcy5w --- FightBigotry

@FightBigotry, I hate to say this, but you’re obviously in the process losing your damn mind. It’s incomprehensible that you’re attempting to reduce 400 hundred years of racism and oppression and subsequently juxtapose it with a two minute video supposedly highlighting Black racism. These sufferings included The Middle Passage, Slavery, Jim Crow Laws, Black Code Laws and the pain, conditions and strife that Blacks Americans endured during the Civil Rights era as well and are still bearing scars even as I write this piece. The collective pain of minorities and Black Americans in particular, are irreducible to a TouTube video/sound bite. You’ve got to come up with a whole lot more than this two-minute choppy, crappy video to convince me or anyone else for that matter, that White Americans are being mistreated on account of their race/heritage. Did you recently have a lobotomy performed on your brain???

Wow. You started pulling in the trolls. Nomad either has personal issues or is a symptom of some pretty serious mind-bending going on. Is it even worth asking these people how they REALLY know where ANYONE was born? Do they REALLY know where THEY were born? I mean, after all, they were not conscious at the time. People often later find out they were adopted and were lied to about their own birth place. Can Nomad really be sure where s/he was born? This is all very fishy, you can't really trust anything these days. (I almost just wrote he but then decided maybe I'm gender prejudiced.)

@nomad. "Nevertheless, a convincing original birth certificate has yet to be produced. Strange. It's as if something on the original document is being hidden. I'm suspicious."

You know I love talking about conspiracies. Are you an expert on what birth certificates look like? Could you tell a "fake" birth certificate from a "real" one? Are you trained as a archivist or cultural historian with a particular expertise in public documents?

"And Barack Obama brought this suspicion upon himself by going to such great lengths to hide portions of his path and his complete capitulation to a rightwing agenda. I'm suspicious of people who betray their principles."

You missed Obama's deadly move there. He played them all--in military terms he created a salient or pocket which his enemies funneled themselves into looking for weakness. Obama cut them off, encircling them, and defeating them in detail.

Brilliant move.

Obama is an American citizen. Only desperate fools would argue otherwise.

Now did we go to the moon? Alternatively, did we go there and were told to leave and never come back or perhaps we established a moon base there? That is a convo I am willing to have.

"Obama is an American citizen. Only desperate fools would argue otherwise."

Ya, that is what I'm trying to do. Prove Obama is not a citizen. Did you and OW even read what I wrote? I didn't say he was not American citizen. I said he was in all probability a Manchurian candidate. And ny that I don't mean he was born in Manchuria.

@nomad. sorry, missed your emphasis. one of the central birther claims is that obama is a manchurian candidate raised and socialized abroad and programmed to bring down the U.S.. Your claim is that he is some secret agent who is a U.S. citizen serving some secret interests to accomplish the same ends and that his "foreign" upbringing is coincidental to that goal.

You can tell by my tone, however polite, that I think such a theory is a bit too complicated and untrue. Obama, like his predecessors, serves a narrow set of elite interests. That is nothing new. Radicals do not become President, that was true from the founding to the present.

Nomad: quoting your own words: "I don't necessarily subscribe to the theory that Obama was born in Nigeria. That part doesn't matter, for the reasons you stated. Nevertheless, a convincing original birth certificate has yet to be produced. Strange. It's as if something on the original document is being hidden. I'm suspicious."

a) You don't seem to know or care about the difference between Kenya and Nigeria. Points for ignorance.

b) "convincing original birth certificate" is the give-away for generic paranoia echoing in white circles. I ask you again: how do you know YOUR birth certificate is genuine? How do you know ANYBODY's birth certificate is genuine? Why is this question not even being asked about any White politician? How do I know you are not an alien troll trying to mislead real Americans? Why should anyone think that anything you have to say should be treated seriously when you premise your arguments on statements that only make sense in an alternate delusional reality?

Here's the likely origin of the conspiracy theory - and it's actually pretty interesting as the Boston Phoenix tends to be pretty interesting.

There is no denying and no point trying that Obama is a Brookings Institution production, that he was selected and cast in this role and that the bulk of his campaign finance was nucleated by Brookings affiliated funder/investors. If I recall correctly, Haim Saban (power rangers creator) was the primary contributor and the core of the cabal that funded Obamas political ascendency.

It's not at all racist to question the origins and purpose of the Hon.Bro.Preznit.Double-O, and those pretending otherwise are doing so because his academic and professional history doesn't tolerate close scrutiny particularly well....,

Mitt Romney is a corporate tool who won't get my vote and shouldn't be POTUS. But George Romney was fired ("forced to resign") from the Nixon Administration for trying to forcibly integrate neighborhoods.

No, I mean, I accepted Barack Obama at face value in 2008. Alright! Put an end to Bushism and healthcare reform to boot. As soon as he got into office he continued and amplified Bushism and soldout on healthcare reform. On top of that he launches and assault against Social Security. This ain't what I voted for! This looks suspiciously like a con. Classic bait and switch. On a grand scale. My spidey sense is tingling like crazy. You know, his agenda seems to be hidden and it seems to be the opposite of what he declares. That single fact makes me look at him with suspicion. Birth certificate, school records, work history and whatever else I can find out about Barack Obama. Who is this masked man? So maybe he's not a Manchurian incumbent. Maybe he's just "a Brookings Institution production", doing the bidding of his corporate masters. That's equally sad. However I don't think its that simple. The rise of Barack Obama appears to have been orchestrated and marketed to the people. By powerful interests. Who knows who they are? That would undoubtedly be classified as a conspiracy. I am. however, open to other theories as to how this conspiracy came about.

Nomad et al: It was pretty obvious to me in 2008 that Obama was a centrist Democrat. His health care plan was less progressive than Hiliary Clinton's and had already sold out to the insurance companies in the election phase, although generally the two of them were pretty much on the same page politically otherwise. It was obvious at the time that there were monied interests that had decided Obama was their man. I voted for Obama eyes open knowing what I was getting and what I wasn't getting. He disappointed me insofar in trying too hard to compromise with Republicans even after they made it clear they weren't playing, but even there I'm aware that it was the conservative Democrats who were the real problem. And he disappointed me in not trying harder to use his oratorical skills to try to sell health care reform and stimulus policies. I suspect his real failure will prove to have been his inability to play politics and strong arm his own party into relatively mild policy reforms he campaigned on when they had power in 2009-2010.

You don't need weird conspiracy theories to understand what is going on, although it is certainly appropriate to pay attention to the fact that nobody gets elected without backing from some segment of big money. Worrying that the wealthy are controlling both parties seems entirely appropriate to me. My own conspiracy theory is that big money supports Republicans to make them rich, then brings in Democrats when those policies ruin the economy and somebody has to clean up the mess, then back to Republicans when the mess is cleaned up.

Republicans can only win by drawing White working class support; when they lose the White working class, they lose. When Bill Clinton was in office, the right wing was just as full of bizarre conspiracy theories, but they did not take the form of imagining that Clinton was not who he said he was. Instead they involved murder and sexual perversions.

It's the way the far-fetched birtherist tales about Obama seem plausible to Whites that is the biggest clue to the racial paranoia feeding this round.

I'm actually pretty embarrassed about responding to you as if you were sincere because the content of your text is so self-contradictory. I think I vote troll.

you need to go with Pastor Manning and try Obama in absentia in a kangaroo court ;)

He is one of the most written about and vetted candidates in U.S. history. Bizarre. Here is another problem with the Birther stupidity--the Democrats did a ton of research on him and probably even interviewed every white woman he had sex with lest there be some Mandingo race play in Obama's background. If his basic documents are not up to par, again, do you think he would have even been elected Senator?

"My spidey sense is tingling like crazy. You know, his agenda seems to be hidden and it seems to be the opposite of what he declares. That single fact makes me look at him with suspicion. Birth certificate, school records, work history and whatever else I can find out about Barack Obama. Who is this masked man?"

"My spidey sense is tingling like crazy. You know, his agenda seems to be hidden and it seems to be the opposite of what he declares. That single fact makes me look at him with suspicion. Birth certificate, school records, work history and whatever else I can find out about Barack Obama. Who is this masked man?"

Please explain this.

Unfortunately this discussion will be over by the time I'm able to get back. I'll have to do a post about it. Basically the anomalies in Barack's history suggest this particular theory, particularly his family's connection to the CIA. In addition his policies are not just centrist. They are significantly right of center and he has a penchant for covert activities and a police state mindset. That will be the gist of my argument.

Still haven't gotten around to writing that post yet, but, for those of you who think I'm off the rails, here's an interesting factoid about Secret Service operatives going on to be president.

"In January of 1965, FBI agents closing in on mobster Joseph “Joe Bananas” Bonanno discovered that the hellion son of an FBI informant code-named T-10 was raising hell alongside Bonanno’s own teenage son. Agents looked to exploit the two boys’ relationship to help break the case—until, that is, J. Edgar Hoover ordered his underlings to instead warn informant T-10 that his son’s mob associations might harm the confidential source’s fledgling political career. The Justice Department never did manage to pin a decent indictment on Joe Bananas. But T-10—and his fledgling political career—did just fine. He later became the fortieth president of the United States."http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2012/09/j-edgars-favorite-snitch-named-airport.html

Who is Chauncey DeVega?

I am the editor and founder of We Are Respectable Negroes, as well as the host of the podcast known as "The Chauncey DeVega Show".

I am also a race man in progress, Black pragmatist, ghetto nerd, cultural critic and essayist.

I have been a guest on the BBC, Ring of Fire Radio, Ed Schultz, Make it Plain, Joshua Holland's Alternet Radio Hour, the Thom Hartmann radio show, the Burt Cohen show, and Our Common Ground.

I have also been interviewed on the RT Network and Free Speech TV.

My writing has been featured by Salon, Alternet, The New York Daily News, and the Daily Kos.

My work has also been referenced by MSNBC, as well as online magazines and publications such as The Atlantic, Slate, The Week, The New Republic, Buzzfeed, The Daily Beast, The Washington Times, The Nation, and The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Judge me by my enemies. Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Juan Williams, Herman Cain, Alex Jones, World Net Daily, Twitchy, the Free Republic, NewsBusters, the Media Research Council, Project 21, and Weasel Zippers have made it known that they do not like me very much.